I had a successful weekend that I want to share.

When I met my wife at college she was an art student specializing in high-fire, non-functional (artistic) ceramics. I loved her work, and really enjoyed visiting with her as she worked – kind of mesmerized by the motion of the potter’s wheel and enjoying our discussions. (I suppose that is a large measure of while I married her.) We both graduated in our chosen fields, got jobs, had a family and left things like art behind. When her 50th birthday came we were finally getting some our “life” back so I bought her a potter wheel and converted our garage to a “studio” space in the hopes of her returning to her art. While it was a nice gesture, things kept coming up and the wheel sat unused. Without a kiln it is pretty difficult to transport “greenware” to a kiln because clay is extremely fragile in that state. It was just too much trouble to make things at one place and then fire them someplace else.

About ten years after getting the wheel she found a big, old, very used electric kiln for sale at a yard sale. The price was right even if it didn’t work and needed some repair. A new kiln like it costs about $6,000. She paid $300 for this one. It came home and sat for several more years – taking up space but without power or a place to be used.

When we became stuck at home because of covid I ran out of excuses for postponing the project of setting her up with a usable studio space. We have a small barn that I claimed as my shop space. Since we no longer had horses, the unused stalls were just full of the overflow storage from my shop. That meant that there was the possibility of creating a small studio in one of the unused stalls. Creating that studio space turned into quite a project, requiring insulation in the walls and ceiling, a new wall to separate it from my woodworking shop, windows, doors, sheetrock, and tiny HVAC system, lighting and more. I finally got all of that completed – but still had an old, untested, kiln waiting.

The first problem was that the device for lifting and holding the lid was absent. The lid opens like the top of a chest freezer, but it is too heavy to lift without assistance, and there was nothing to hold it up once it is open. The first task was to create some sort of lifting device. I started by trying to rig up cables and things to lift it, but that wasn’t working very well. A good friend came by one day and mentioned that I needed ballast. That idea resulted in a very simple device shown in the photo. It was just a couple of sections of angle iron hinged on the same hinge pin as the lid. My son’s old body-building weights counterbalance and offset the weight of the lid. It works perfectly! Lifting the lid is accomplished by pushing down on the bar holding the weights, which becomes slightly “over centered” when the lid is fully open – holding the lid up without any other devices being required.

Having a working method of accessing the kiln meant it was time to invest in bringing it electricity. Other than the high cost of copper wire these days, it was a small job of our local electrician. It was now time to do a test run to see if it actually works, if the controls were still functional and the heating coils still working. A few small items in the controls are no longer functional, such as the knob on the heat controller and the device that turns off the power once the desired temperature is reached. I tried to order replacement parts for these items, but the kiln is so old (circa 1965) that the parts are no longer available! However, after studying the manuals I figured out how to make it work without the controls (more manual, less automatic).

My first day of trying to make it work wasn’t very successful. No matter what I tried, the thing just wouldn’t turn on. How frustrating! I read the manuals, searched ytube for assistance and all of that – to no avail. I even contacted the controller company who were very helpful, sending me the controller electrical schematics – but most of the components are no longer available. It was looking dire. I devised some ways to bypass the controller completely and run the kiln manually. As I was pondering how best to do that I did a lot of electrical testing to make sure power was acting as I thought it should – and it seemed to be correct, but still nothing was happening. I decided to just turn it on for awhile and see what, if anything, might happen. A couple of hours I went to check it and “IT WAS WORKING!” I had misunderstood how the control system worked. It has a clock that ramps up power by cycling the power on-and off. It starts with each “on” time period being a very short part of time cycle. As the firing progresses the portion of the cycle that is “on” increases until eventually it is on all of the time. When I was first trying to make it work the “on” cycle was mostly “off” – so when I measured voltages and things there was nothing to measure. However, when I just left it alone the length of the cycle increased until it was obviously running. Eight hours later and the kiln was up temperature, glowing almost yellow through the view port. As night came, all of the little seams were glowing bright yellow with heat waves enveloping the kiln. It works!

I can finally hand over the studio and kiln for my artist friend (my wife). I hope I haven’t taken so long that old age is going to interfere with its use. One of the neighbor ladies from down the street has expressed interest in sharing the kiln, which would be great fun. I am looking forward to many enjoyable days with friends sitting with the kiln as it slowly cooks the locally made art pieces. There is something really special to sit with a kiln as it fires, you have to be present for safety reasons, and to make adjustments as the firing progresses – but it is also a great time to chat with friends, watch the day go by and just sort of relax with something to do, but not too much. I have started fantasying about creating a pretty little sitting space for the pottery kibitzers and kiln sitters.

It was a great day to finally bring all of the threads of the protect together into a usable whole.